


The Rambles of a Tiny Bird

by Rimaina



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ficlets, Gen, M/M, Other, rambles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 07:52:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16363871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rimaina/pseuds/Rimaina
Summary: A collection of ficlets and rambles from the MicroBird!Dirk art of Merupuri.Story 1: Glowing Teapot. Dirk is a simple bird creature with simple wishes.





	1. Glowing Teapot 1/2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MeruPuri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeruPuri/gifts).



> Tumblr post inspiration: [Genie!Jake](https://ups-my-hand-slipped.tumblr.com/post/179241513833)

Today, was a rainy day. You saw the sky slowly covered with dark clouds and you knew it was going to be a terrible storm. The ground animals were rushing to and fro your forest home, seeking shelter before the storm was about to begin. Standing up from your main tree, you spread your wings to take flight. But where should you go? You did not know how strong the storm will be and how long you have to stay in a shelter.

The trees were big but the leaves would not survive strong wings. What’s worse is that they may break off because of it. You cannot stay in your tree. You have to relocate, somewhere safer, somewhere where you can find food too. You flew up the highest point of your tree and took a look at the horizon.

It’s no good. The dark clouds go as far as the horizon is. A burst of lightning flashes before your eyes. The roaring wave of thunder immediately comes next. You feathers ruffle behind you, wings ready to take flight. You do not like that sound at all. It’s loud and scary. You’ve seen storms that had loud thunder before. Those are the worst. You had to leave your old home because of that. When you came back, there was nothing left of your tree, nor your stash of berries. It was disheartening.

You stood tall above your tree, eyes scanning for a place to go. A cave? The caves near here go deeper down, floods were prone to that area. A bigger tree? The other ground creatures would have gotten shelter there already, you did not want to trespass their shelter nor do you want to have to steal their food.

There were too many factors to consider and with no time to gather your thoughts.

Then you remember. There was a wooden structure a bit far away from here to the south. The storm is coming in from your north and the structure was to the south. If you fly south, you’d give yourself some time, probably a few minutes to gather food. You hope that there would be food nearby.

You jump. Glide down your tree and flapped your wings once, twice, faster until you go higher and higher than your tree. You look back, you don’t know if your tree would survive, it was still young and small, its roots not even appearing above the surface of the ground.

Your own safety was your priority and leaving your tree is a must. There were no berries stocked in your tree anyway, so there are no hard feelings of leaving it behind. Head facing forward, you fly to that wooden structure.

It didn’t take long before you managed to reach the roof of the wooden structure. Humans dwelled in this structure sometimes. You never interacted with them, none of your kind wanted to interact with them, even the animals did not dare trespass their territories. Every time you visited this structure, you made sure that there was no person inside. Thankfully, no one seems to be home at that moment, all you have to do is to ride out the storm until it passes, once it’s over, you’ll go back to your tree if it’s still there, or move to another place in the forest.

The forest is big anyway, you don’t doubt you’ll find a better tree without any tenants in it. You don’t like sharing.

You landed on the roof and looked behind you. The clouds were crawling towards where you are, a white fog following below it. The droplets of rain were so dense that it looks like a white curtain. It's about time you went inside. You poked around the roof area before entering through a small gap between the wall and the roof itself.

It's very cold inside.

You remember that there was some food stored somewhere inside this place the last time you went there. Dried bits of meat and fruit. Mostly fruit which you were glad for, but you were not sure if there were any right now. You have to head downstairs for that but the last time you went here was when the door of the top floor was open, right now, it was closed and you haven't a clue to open it. There has to be another hole you can squeeze into to get downstairs.

You walk with your two legs as opposed to using your wings, there was too many stuff littered about the room. This was an attic, you recall the humans called it. An extra storage room for some things they want to preserve or store for the time being. Whoever owned this place has a lot of weird things. Ropes dangled from the beams of the ceiling, supporting some bigger stuff you don't know what to call them. There were paintings, art pieces that seemed too grand to be stored inside here.

You don't understand why humans would go such great lengths in acquiring these kinds of things when it can't be eaten. Majority of the room was filled with wooden boxes, some have locks in them, some have decorative material like gold and iron.

There was a window at the far end of the room, your only source of light inside this room. The howling winds start rattling the window panes, you could vaguely see the white curtain of rain approaching. The lightning strikes got more frequent, as well as the thunder resonating throughout the area.

You can slowly feel the air getting cold as soon as the first few drops of rain hit the window. You hugged yourself tight and rubbed your hands around your arms, your claws carefully out of the way. Normally you had your old feathers inside your little nest to keep you warm but that was already far away from here. You need to find something to keep you warm for now, you hope that there was food stored inside this place or you're not even sure you'll survive the storm.

Your wings wrap around your small form for extra warmth, the soles of your feet all tingly from the cold wooden floor. Maybe you'll make another nest here, somewhere above the beams just in case the humans came back and looked around the attic. You highly doubt any humans would travel here during a storm.

Slowly, the light from outside faded away. Your eyes adjusted quickly and you are sure that if some light was shined on your eyes, they would appear to be glowing. The boxes from before became dark silhouettes, it’ll get a bit harder to navigate around the room now, using your wings is a big no-no because who knows if you hit something hard and fall to the ground.

There was something amiss while your eyes fully adjusted to the darkness. Around the corner of the room was glowing an orange light. It was like a faint sunset in the darkness. You wouldn’t have noticed if it were bright outside but now in the grey darkness, it was like a candle to a moth. You being the moth who is slowly walking towards the light. The pitter patter of your feet and the roaring winds outside was the only sound in the attic, the closer you get the more you realize that whatever it was, it was not emitting a steady glow. The pattern of the glow resembled breathing.

The object of interest was atop a wooden trunk. It was covered with a smaller sized cloth, but bigger compared to you. You used your wings to give yourself a boost up the trunk, the air from the flapping of your wings displaces a good chunk of dust covering the cloth. You did not think this through. You ended up having a hacking fit in which you uncontrollably flap your wings even harder to blow away the dust around you, resulting in more dust entering your nostrils.

You stumble on top of the trunk, and you manage to trip yourself from the cloth under you. You fall just short of the glowing object, your face smothered with leftover dust. The glow stopped following the breathing pattern you saw as if sensing your stumble near it. You stopped breathing too, afraid that you should have not caused such a ruckus near something you don’t even know. You stared at the glowing object, it’s breathing extremely slow, as if unsure of what happened.

You think it was not aware of you, just aware that something happened near it. You pick yourself up and dust yourself off. Slowly, you walked towards it, a hand to your chest while the other reached out to take the cloth off from it. The glow was slowly getting brighter as if anticipating something to happen. You yourself are not sure if you should be even doing this. You should have been searching for food and something to keep you warm.

Perhaps cutting some of this cloth would be enough of a reason to continue what you were doing. Yeah, you want to cut some of this cloth to start your nest, totally, you just had to take it then use your claws on it. You haven’t realized that the closer you got, the warmer the air feels around the object. There was no going back, the tip of your claws grabbed onto the fabric. You yanked the fabric towards you, pulling it behind you until you unravel the object under it.

Brightness flooded your vision. A golden teapot like thing stood in front of you. The glow was warm and inviting and despite your instincts telling you to not touch that thing, you went closer. You placed your claws on the teapot. You can feel a steady beat under your palms. This thing was alive somehow, it was warm, warmer than the cold attic you are in. Despite it being made out of metal, it emits a warm aura, as if inviting you to come even closer.

You don’t know why but you felt like you had to come closer to it, to put your body against it. And yeah, it does feel nice against your body. You put your head right against it, feel the beat under your forehead, hear it breathe from the inside. Perhaps it was instinct when you rubbed your cheek against the surface and before you knew it, you can feel it vibrating under your palms.

Wait, vibrating? Something was happening. You don’t know what is happening, but it was spooking you out. You step backward from the teapot just in time for it to start freaking out and rattle even more. Fight or flight instincts kick in and you were pretty sure that you were no match for a metallic glowing teapot and whatever it is about to do. Your legs continue to briskly walk backward, not knowing what to do. Your wings were ready to let you take off but you weren’t thinking straight right now.

The next step your foot takes lands on nothing. The next thing your eyes catch was smoke pouring out of the spout of the pot and the vague shape of something human forming out of the smoke. And then your head hits the wooden floor.


	2. Glowing Teapot 2/2

You wake up in your nest. The sound of gushing wind and rustling leaves is strong, the entrance to your nest inside the tree is covered by large leaves that you built in hopes of keeping the rain out. The clouds were thin yesterday, not as foreboding but your instinct is telling your it’s going to be a big one, but not so big that you think you would leave your current nest.

You curl and stretch your wings as much as your little hole would allow, your old feathers used as some sort of cushion for your small frame. You don’t think you’re small. You’re slightly bigger than a sparrow. You stand taller than a sparrow, though if you curled up on yourself you’d be the same size, give or take a few inches. You are significantly smaller than the other woodland creatures, that’s for sure.

You scrape the underside of your nest out of instinct, keeping your talons sharp just like a bobcat would scratch the bark of trees to do a bit of “exercise”. Meat isn’t really in your diet, the bigger animals eat those, but you prefer berries out of all the things you can scavenge in the forest. The only times you eat meat are when you follow campers around the area and they leave bits of dried meat around their camp.

They are wasting perfectly good food! You and the other birds usually help yourself to the food scraps after they are long gone, that is if the worms hadn’t gone to it first. There is a town a long way away from the forest, tall ashen grey forts and cold walls surround where the humans live. You can’t think of why the humans would want to isolate themselves from the forest. The forest is nice, it’s your home, and the animals live in harmony.

Now that you think about it, maybe there are a few things that would make the humans think it’s not good to live outdoors. There are occasional rabid animals on the loose, wreaking havoc amongst your neighbours. You have the high ground against the four-legged animals of the forest, plus, you can fly. Your house is discreet enough for squirrels and other birds not to try and trespass in your territory. Claw marks surround the entrance of your nest, warning the other animals that you are not afraid to fight back when they try to claim what you have.

The rumble of your stomach gives you a reason to start moving around to get some grub. Not literal grub, just, berries maybe, maybe some nuts too for some variety. The moment you stand up, you immediately feel that something is off. You know there is a storm outside, you can hear the wind causing some trees to lose their branches. It’s dark, barely any light in your nest, but your eyes let you see around the area. Everything is blurred around the edges of your vision. The time feels off, out of place, like your body is somehow not moving with the flow of time.

It dawns on you that you were in a dream. The things you see after that don’t stack the usual way it stacks before you.

Dreams are never something concrete. They often are abstract imagery and patterns of things you see every day. Your dreams always seem to depict spring, your favourite of seasons. Everything blooms, from flowers to animals. Bright greens and the rustling of leaves, the air filled with the smell of wet ground and flowers dripping sweet morning dew.

The other birds sing for the rising sun and you sing along with them. In your dreams, you fly higher than the trees but not so far lest you lose your way from your nest. In your dreams, your nest would be filled with berries, every kind of berry that you can think of. Sometimes you give the other winged creatures your leftover berries, but you absolutely hate it when they ransack your nest to steal your berries.

You dream of angrily chirping at the other birds for stealing materials from your nest. Your tone harsh for them to hear, to make it clear that you were unhappy with what they did. It seems endless for you, but it also feels there is no sense of time passing. Maybe after your burst of chirps and screeches, you had stopped at one point, never realizing that there was a layer of mist surrounding you.

You watch the dense veil of mist slowly devour what's left of open space in your dreams. You are still in your nest but your berries, one by one, turn into mist. You did not understand what is happening. You don’t understand why you try to understand what’s happening in your dreams when you are presently dreaming. As if it’s important to take note of what’s happening in your dreams. But you don’t remember why, you doubt you’ll remember why when you wake up.

There is no logic when it comes to dreams and you try your best to remember if there is something to be remembered. Reality, what is happening in the conscious world. What happened before you passed out. You cannot think clearly, your memory is like the fog invading your dream, dense and shapeless.

The surrounding area continues to be consumed by the heavy fog, darkening your vision. You can see wisps of something trying to form in front of you. You spread your wings in a threatening way, signaling whatever is in front of you that you are alarmed. This is a dream, but that doesn’t stop your instincts from kicking in. This is your fight or flight response, but you don’t know how you’ll be able to fight something that is not concrete.

Maybe you could command your brain to give it a proper form. Dreams are all supposed to be made inside the confines of your mind, right? You really do hope you’re right. The first thing that comes to your mind is a berry, a large and ominous looking berry, but you can’t give shape to it. Berries have never failed you, and all they’ve done is give you joy and fill your belly.

∞∞∞

Hands form from the heavy fog, reaching out to you. They look humanoid, five ghostly fingers on each hand slowly condensing into concrete form. The smoke stops reaching out to you in favor of standing still and allowing itself to stabilize. You don’t move from your spot, you have nowhere to go so what’s the point? You watch the figure spasm from all sides, the upper torso trying to align itself with the hands that were already formed. The head is egg-shaped until wisps come out to form wind swept hair, brows are indents on the face, stone grey is replaced by tree bark brown, the other edges of the face are contoured to reveal a rather charming being, you think.

More smoke gathers in the middle condensing itself to form a human torso. You definitely think they’re a “they” rather than an “it.” Especially since they seem to take a humanoid form as opposed to and animalistic one. You don't see any smoke going out and forming animal characteristics, so it seems safe to assume that this is definitely a person but not exactly human. You doubt any human would suddenly form out of smoke. To the best of your knowledge, every other animal and human comes from somewhere. The figure before you has to be something, rather, someone out of the laws of nature.

Their lower torso doesn't seem to be forming at all. It stays as a dense fog, or mist, or smoke, whatever term you can use. It's wide where the condensed shape of the upper torso meets the belt and rest of the smoke. It vaguely resembles a small cyclone except it's not moving at all, it just, floats there with the tip of it reaching down the ground without touching it.

You watch their face, stuck in a sleeping state, head tilted to the side in peaceful slumber. Their lashes are thick and dark, you can faintly see the white part of their eyes if you go closer to their face. You don't think they’ll be waking up any time soon. And you don't want them to wake up in case they try to hurt you for getting up and personal with their face.

More mist swirls around the body, forming light clothing that does not cover much of what is already revealed. The boundary of their torso is covered by a thin scarf that serves as a belt of sorts. Everything is surreal and almost makes you forget that this is your dream. You didn’t think your brain had the capacity to form such imagery like this. Right, you’re dreaming, you don’t have to flap your wings in a dream, and you can just float if you want to. So float you do, crossing your legs in front of the body that continues to form itself.

Funnily enough, the body’s posture isn’t sloppy despite them looking like they’re sleepwalking. You watch as their skin smooth itself out and forms a bit of a texture true to human skin and less of a ghastly apparition. You notice that the lower torso, or at least the smoky tail of a torso leads to something below the figure. It’s the lamp that you had rubbed a little while ago.

Wait, was it a little while ago? You don’t know how long you have been dreaming.

You spend a few minutes (you think) staring at the forming figure. They really are human, or the majority of them is human. From head to torso, dark human skin, and not to mention they have quite a strong build. They seem to be in a peaceful slumber. You put yourself in an upright position before approaching the figure. You touch their face, using the soft pads of your hands to get a feel of their cheeks. You do your best not to get your claws on any part of their face because you know from experience that your claws touching any part of a body would be bad and seem like a threat to other animals unless they know you intend to do no harm.

You watch their face for any sign of life. Even a little breath occasionally would be nice because you're starting to worry if this being in front of you might be dead. When is breathing a problem for beings in the dream world? You are suddenly very conscious of yourself currently not breathing at all. You're still getting a hang of being able to move around your dreams like this. But you wonder, you have way too much freedom in this dream and you're slightly suspicious that this might not be a dream at all, or you may be trespassing in someone else's dream. You wish for the latter. But whose dream might this be? Of course, there's only one other concrete abstract being in this dream right now, who is kind of floating in front of you, sans their lower regions.

You explore the lower parts of the body, particularly the dark thick mist that leads to the lamp. You test your hand out on the mist. There is something preventing you to go any further than the surface of it despite looking like smoke as you originally thought. You let your legs touch the ground and walk towards the lamp. It’s the same as you remember touching it, except it’s not glowing this time around. The color of the lamp is more of a bronze gold rather than pure gold.

Why is the person connected to the lamp? Why is there a barrier keeping you from really touching their body? The more you think about it, the more that you think of the person as someone who is shackled to the lamp. Except you don’t think a lamp is heavy enough to keep a person grounded. Who are you to know? You still have much to learn in this world and you’d love to learn as much as you can in your short lifespan.

You stir yourself awake from the weird dream. Your body is sore and your wings are not completely folded on your back. You find yourself curled up on some fabric that was probably taken out of a chest somewhere in this attic. The sound of boxes moved and opened alerts you of the presence of someone else with you in the attic. Even though you are sure you were alone when you first entered. The same man from your dreams is going through the boxes that he appears to have opened. He must have been the one who laid out the fabric for you to sleep on, he also put a handkerchief on you to serve as a blanket of sorts. You hold out the handkerchief and see the fine weaving and embroidery it possesses. It is beautiful if only it isn’t already rotting. The weave is weak, if you used your claw on it you are sure that you could tear a hole without much effort.

The storm did not pass while you were unconscious. The raindrops pelt the wooden roof of your temporary shelter, if you had stayed in your tree the sound would terrify you, but now that you are inside this place, it feels somewhat comforting. The window panes are rattling from the occasional gust of wind from the storm. The leaves from trees were whistling and rattling against each other. You didn’t notice but there is a small orb of light following the man. He is rearranging boxes and looking through open chests. He must have taken off a protective sheet of fabric from what appears to be a really old sofa. Much less a sofa since there is no soft cotton to sit on. Maybe a bench was more appropriate to use. You know what human furniture is and what it looks like, but words fail you and you doubt that anyone would understand you speech anyway. 

You shuffle from your little bed and the man hears you somehow. You doubt he could hear much aside from the storm and his own shuffling about. You stare at him, and he stares back, the orb that was floating next to him moves from his shoulder to the middle of the room, glowing a bit brighter for both of you to see. Did he perhaps dim the orb so he wouldn’t disturb you sleeping? You watch as his mouth slowly turns into a smile, his teeth peeking out of his lips.

He pads over to you. You take note that he was wearing the same thing he was wearing in your dream, only now, you realise that what he’s wearing was rather translucent, light, and flowy. It looks like his clothes was moving from a breeze inside the attic, only, you don’t think there are any drafts, maybe you are mistaken since you haven’t explored yet. At first he sits down on the floor right in front of you, the light orb floating above both you.

Your find yourself sitting up like him, your neck straining and stretched just to look at his eyes. The man must have noticed your problem and he decided to lay stomach down on the floor, the fabric under both of you shielding his exposed skin so that it didn’t touch the cold and probably dirty floor. His eyes does not hide his interest in you, treating you like some kind of specimen, a thing, rather than a living being. It was unnerving, this obviously intelligent being is studying you. Is your kind really that rare?

Are you the only one of your kind?

You banish the thoughts from your head.

The more that the man was looking at you, the more your unease becomes annoyance. How dare he looks at you like some cute and harmless animal! You know a couple of otherworldly beings whose looks can be deceiving. One moment you’re just napping the afternoon away and the next would be birds flying out and away the inner parts of the forest because some animal decided to desecrate a forest spirit’s shrine in that area. Regular animals don’t really identify what is right and wrong, and you’re glad that you are intelligent enough to know what is what. And this man in front of you is just making you feel smaller than you physically are. You won’t stand for that!

You can see yourself from the reflection of his eyes. He looks amused about this situation. He turns his head to examine your body even more. You would think that he should have done that already when he first put you into a makeshift nest. Maybe he does have some bit of decency in him. You move your head mirroring his head movements, which does nothing for you since you see so little from the ground. Honestly all you see his skin which his clothes barely cover, and lots of hair. Body hair. No hair on his chest though. You take one look at your own chest, comparing your lack of hair anywhere aside from your head compared to the hair on his arms and legs, which you can see though the thin fabric.

He lowers his head and smiles at you. He looks like he is about to speak when he stops himself to seemingly think about something. Whatever thinking he did was short and he starts speaking to you using human language.

“Hi there! What a cute little thing I found!” he says in his accented voice. Actually, you don’t know what is the standard accent is. The people who pass by your tree always had a different accent. Adventurers, travelers, bandits, the latter having hushed voices and using some other language you are not familiar with.

Wait. Little thing?

How dare he call you a LITTLE THING. First of all, you had no control on what you would look like. Size doesn’t matter in this situation, it’s al about performance! You were able to survive for nineteen years and counting all in your lonesome. That has to amount to something! This man has fucking crossed the line and he deserves to be called a shitbag for that sentence. You don’t deserve to be belittled literally! He knows nothing about your life, while you, can assume that he probably did the dirty to a lot of things even non humans judging by how much skin he is revealing.

Isn’t that how humans attract mates? To expose as much skin as possible but teasing their privates towards the intended person they are seducing? You think he’s a massive Softie for small animals except you’re not an animal! Well, part animal, but still you don’t think you deserve such indecency coming from him. You take what you said before, he isn’t a decent person, this guy is a total dick bag and you are absolutely sure you are right.

You watch his amused expression turn baffled, before turning to a face that you can only describe as the face when you’re about to reprimand someone.

“You sir, should wash your mouth with soap after such dirty words”

“You can understand me?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes/After story:  
> There is a connection from the spout of the genie lamp to Jake’s smoky lower torso, keeping him bound to the lamp as to not let him escape his curse. It’s a weird dynamic but unless Dirk has precisely made his wish that somehow tells Jake to stay with him in the “surface” Jake cannot go far from the lamp.
> 
> Dirk just watches Jake's sleeping body, except Jake is technically conscious and just does not know how to not frighten the little guy. Jake is awake in the real world but is somewhat conscious in the dream world. He's debating on whether he tries to communicate with Dirk in the dream world or force Dirk to wake up, so they could talk in the real world. Going back to Dirk's POV, he just stares at Jake's face curiously, and then Jake decides that he needs to wake up Dirk *gently* so wakes his other self in the dream word.
> 
> There are some genie stories where once the genie has fulfilled their master’s three wishes they are granted freedom from the curse of the lamp. I don’t know what happens to those people, but I assume that the master will be the next genie of the lamp for this AU. Jake is aware of this and Jake had a history of masters that would only use two out of three wishes and passes his lamp to the next person. No matter how many times Jake tried to trick his old masters on using all three wishes his masters would get suspicious immediately. Since his new master, which is Dirk, seems to know nothing about that, he decides that maybe, just maybe he could trick the birb into using all three wishes. Dirk of course, uses only two of his wishes, because he is afraid of being alone for the time being, and eventually he will think that he would be alone for the rest of his life, and Jake is stuck with Dirk until Jake somehow gets another master. Jake is somewhat unhappy with the current situation but ends up pitying the young birb. Dirk was born with no one else to guide him. He was one of a kind wherever he goes, he saw no other humanoid birds throughout his life. Dirk’s maximum lifespan is 21 human years.
> 
> Dirk’s three wishes:  
> 1\. To be able to understand and speak human speech. Understand is flexible here and will include reading as a bonus.  
> 2\. For food of his choice to appear before him whenever he wants it. Berries for life.  
> 3\. The third, which is a silent wish, for the genie to not leave his side for the rest of his life. Which, is not long compared to human years, even more so compared to the years that Jake had experienced throughout his time as a genie.
> 
> Jake at this point can move around with legs for the first time in millennia. He explores the cabin in the woods with Dirk on his shoulder, looking around for interesting things and for Dirk to test out the effects of his wish. Dirk reads the books inside the cabin; Little Red Riding Hood is a nice classic that he attempts to read with Jake. Curiously there is also a copy of the Arabian Nights which Jake wants to keep in his lamp.

**Author's Note:**

> Commentary from me and meru:  
> Meru: what if micro birbDirk found Jake's lamp and he has three wishes now.  
> Meru: what will they be?  
> Rima: is that even a question  
> Rima: BErries berries berries


End file.
